A City On The Verge Of Something Truly Wonderful!

 

HPD treats our tax and parking revenue like it is garbage.

It's been about 37 days since the first piece-of-shit $19 plastic paid parking sign made its way off of the parking meter pole on Columbia Street closest to 8th Street.  Now, as of today, it's been two, this one being at least the fifth sign around town having broken off a meter pole.  What an absolute embarrassment.  But the bigger embarrassment might be next month when no members of the so-called SAFETY Committee ask HPD Captain David Miller what the hell is going on with all the broken paid parking signs and how much they are costing city taxpayers (and how much time the POLICE CAPTAIN is spending dealing with them and how much he is being paid for it).  Why would anyone concerned with the safety of tax-paying residents ask the Police Chief or Police Captain about parking signs?

Last summer, the city created a new Parking Bureau (well, HPD did) controlled by HPD and relocated it to the Police Station on Union Street from the more centrally located and accessible City Hall.  A clerk who had worked in the Treasurer's Office for at least a few years decided that being the clerk of the Parking Bureau was more to her liking.  And Doreen Danforth decided that being the police clerk wasn't taking up enough of her time, so she also took on the role of Parking Supervisor (though I'm not entirely sure of that title or if she even has one), presumably to supervise the clerk and all that parking revenue rolling in.  For some reason that I can't figure out but only makes sense in Hudson, neither of those two HPD/Parking Bureau employees attend the SAFETY Committee meetings to give parking updates and tell everyone how wonderfully things are going behind the scenes and on the streets.  Why would they when HPD Captain David Miller can speak for them instead?

Miller recently informed me via email of his role at the Parking Bureau:  "As part of my role with the Hudson Police Department, I oversee the operations of the parking division (since June 2025) which involves overall enforcement and regulatory oversight." 

I'm thinking that our Police Captain, among his many parking duties, is the parking sign guy!   Aren't you?  I can tell you for certain that it doesn't say anywhere in our city charter that the HPD Captain is to "oversee operations of the parking division."  Or "Parking Bureau," for that matter.